


Goldfish and Star Wars and Stuffed Kangaroos

by LilahTeminaEast



Category: Glee
Genre: First Time, M/M, Niff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-06
Updated: 2011-04-06
Packaged: 2017-11-16 16:02:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilahTeminaEast/pseuds/LilahTeminaEast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick's spending the summer in Australia with his family. Jeff hates Australia just on principle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goldfish and Star Wars and Stuffed Kangaroos

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone who read and commented on this when it was first posted over on LJ.

~*~

 

 

They've been together forever, is the thing. Or almost forever: inseparable since the first day of second grade, when Nick told Jeff he liked his Star Wars backpack, and Jeff told Nick that if he liked Star Wars they could be best friends. It feels like forever.

The first time they kissed, Nick was seven and a half and Jeff was eight, and they did it because Nick's brother dared them. The first time they _kissed_ , they were both fourteen, and they did it because they'd been consciously _not_ kissing each other for a while and they were sick of it.

So, they've been together forever, and in all that time the longest they've ever been apart-- until now-- was that week when they were eleven, when they both got seriously grounded for shaving Nick's neighbor's cat. But in the face of forever, three months shouldn't feel like a very long time. It does. Right now, at the beginning of his Summer Without Nick (he always capitlizes it like that in his head), Jeff kind of hates Australia for existing.

 

 

It should probably freak Jeff out, how not seeing Nick every day feels weird and bad and _wrong_. It's the opposite, though. He kind of likes how tangled up they are, how he can't go to the movies or to Lima Bean or even to the fucking grocery store without someone asking where his friend is. It's like people only know him as one half of NickAndJeff, like they're surprised to find out that Jeff can exist on his own.

He doesn't hate it, except when he does. Like, on the one hand, Nick's absence sort of leaves a giant gaping hole in his life, and he wishes people would stop prodding at it because it fucking _hurts_. But on the other hand, all the questions remind him just how much a part of his life Nick _is_ , and that's kind of nice.

 

 

Jeff wasn't prepared for how much everything would suck without Nick around. Like, _everything_. Call of Duty isn't fun anymore because he just keeps dying without Nick there to watch his back. Trying to watch _Star Wars_ with anyone else is stupid because no one else will quote all the lines with him, and isn't that the whole point of watching the fucking movie in the first place? Even Tivo hates him; there isn't a single fucking thing on it that he doesn't usually watch with his boyfriend.

Whatever. He's always been bugfuck crazy over Nick, and not too proud to admit it. It might be sad and pathetic, but at least he fucking owns it.

 

 

He eventually-- for want of anything better to do and since Nick's not around to mock him for it-- lets Blaine talk him into auditioning for the Summer Community Theatre production of _Grease_. Blaine gets Danny, to no one's surprise, but Jeff is kind of surprised to find himself playing a fairly substantial role as Kenickie, oppositie Kurt's friend playing Rizzo. She's short and sort of intense, but Jeff likes her, and he likes having something to do with his time that doesn't involve pining over Nick, because seriously, he was starting to drive _himself_ crazy with that shit.

 

 

Time starts moving again, now that he's got something to focus on besides the giant Nick-shaped hole in his life. The end of summer still feels like a fucking long way off, but not the eternity it seemed during that first week, when he did nothing but eat, sleep, and stare forlornly at his bedroom ceiling. Because apparently beneath his rugged and manly exterior beats the heart of a twelve-year-old girl. Who knew?

They rehearse four days a week, and usually get dinner after-- he, Blaine, Kurt and Rachel-- and it's sort of nice, being a part of something, even if it feels weird that Nick's not a part of it too. Which, okay, is maybe a little sad and codependent, but whatever. Jeff never claimed to not be sad or codependent.

 

 

The beginning of the second month of Jeff's Summer Without Nick sees their show really starting to come together, even if rehearsals are still only semi-organised chaos and the director is kind of insane. Their rehearsal space at the Lima Playhouse is tiny, but it's functional. He shares a dressing room with Kurt and Blaine and Jason, the guy playing Doody, and the four of them play some wicked awesome pranks on the girls across the hall.

Or they do until Keira-- the diva playing Sandy-- complains to the director and they're forced to stop. Keira finds chewing gum in her hairbrush that same afternoon, and all the boys profess their innocence-- it really isn't their style, anyway-- so Jeff is pretty sure it was Rachel, whom he really kind of loves even though she's a major pain in the ass.

 

 

On days with no rehearsals, Jeff finds himself at a loss. He tries not to mope, but the problem is that fucking _everything_ reminds him of Nick. It's like trying not to think of an elephant. Every song on his iPod has some Nick-related memory attached to it. The stack of books on his bedside table makes him think of how they used to do each other's homework in middle school-- Nick would do the english and Jeff would do the math and they both got way better grades than they would have otherwise.

The empty soda can on his dresser reminds him of the time Trent accidentally walked in on them having sex in Nick's dorm room at Dalton, and emptied half his glass of Diet Pepsi on the carpet in his haste to get the door closed. Collecting the mail reminds him of the letter they co-wrote to their parents when they decided it was time to come out. The squeak of training wheels in next door's drive makes him remember the time he fell off his bike and broke his ankle when he was nine; Nick carried him the three blocks home and then held his hand all the way to the hospital.

It's like a physical ache in his chest, like a phantom limb, and sometimes Jeff finds himself dialing Nick's number just to hear his sleepy voice telling him to go fuck himself for calling at this hour, dickface, what the fuck do you want?

 

 

The last week of July, their last week of rehearsal before the show starts its run in August, makes him a true believer in Murphy's Law. Their set designer quits, citing professional differences with their director (an excuse which fools nobody; everyone within a five mile radius already knew they were having an affair). The girl playing Frenchy gets a job offer in Columbus and walks out of rehearsal three days before opening night. That same day, Keira has a diva fit and demands her own dressing room, Rachel gets tonsilitis, and Jason falls off the stage and breaks two of his fingers.

By opening night, Jeff is a quivering mess of nerves and stage fright. He dials Nick's number twenty minutes before curtain up, because he can't remember any of his lines and he thinks he's going to throw up, but Nick will know what to do.

Nick laughs at him. "Dude," he says, "shut the fuck up. You've got this." It's not the words so much as the _certainty_ that makes Jeff think _Yeah. Okay. I've got this_. From there, opening night goes off without a hitch.

 

 

Time moves slower the closer it gets to Nick coming home. Jeff would be going out of his fucking _mind_ , if he didn't have the show to distract him. Friday is their last performance, and everyone is buzzed for it, even if they're also sort of sad to see it end. Rachel hugs him right before show time and tells him not to worry, they'll still see each other all the time, they'll still have dinner with Kurt and Blaine and meet for coffee at the Lima Bean, and some other stuff about this not being the end that he doesn't really pay attention to. He nods and smiles and pats her on the shoulder the way he always does when she's being crazy, and then it's time to go on.

It's their best performance ever, he thinks. Everyone is just _on_. There's a kind of manic energy to it; even Keira keeps forgetting to be a bitch to everyone backstage and actually _smiles_. Jeff almost breaks character to laugh when Rachel-as-Rizzo kisses him with way more enthusiasm than usual, and he has a brief second to wonder what Nick would say if he was here, but then he snaps back into the performance, back into the headspace of his character, into the heady thrill of being someone else, telling a story for an audience. It's fucking addictive, and he knows he'll be back next summer with Nick in tow.

He's grinning when he takes his final bow; he can hear the audience's enthusiastic applause even if he can't really see them with the stage lights shining in his eyes, and Jeff fucking _loves_ this. Keira and Blaine step forward to accept their standing ovation, Jeff hears Kurt whistling from somewhere behind him, and then the stage lights go down as the house lights come up. He blinks the spots out of his eyes and promptly forgets how to breathe.

Nick is staring at him from the front row. Jeff doesn't bother stepping back into formation with the rest of the cast as the curtain comes down one final time; he just launches himself off the stage, because holy fuck, _Nick_.

Jeff tries to speak but that doesn't work, so he just buries his face in Nick's neck and _clings_ for a while. Nick is laughing and kissing his gelled Kenickie hair, saying things like "you were amazing up there," and "I missed you so fucking much, you don't even know", but that's ridiculous because _of course_ he fucking knows, and he opens his mouth to say that but then Nick's kissing him.

Jeff doesn't do anything for a while after that except taste, and feel, and breathe Nick in, and then he pulls away to stare at Nick for a while, and then dives back in for more kissing, because jesus, it's been three _long fucking months_.

They're both breathing heavier when they break the kiss, and Jeff slides a hand up the back of Nick's t-shirt and says "I didn't buy your fish yet," because, well, Nick makes him stupid.

"That's okay," Nick laughs, "I left your kangaroo in Australia."

Jeff grins happily, winds his arms around Nick's neck and holds tight. "How about we go to your house, have a lot of sex, and call it even?"

"Deal."

~fin~


End file.
